The Summer Harry Turned 16
by TheRealGinnyPotter
Summary: Harry returns to Privet drive after his 5th year at school where we follow Harry through his summer happenings..


The Summer Harry turned 16

By: TheRealGinnyPotter

Chapter One

Revised 9/1/03

We join the story just after Harry leaves Kings Cross at the end of his 5th year.  

Uncle Vernon's car rounded the corner onto Privet Drive and pulled into the driveway of recently manicured Number 4 just as it had always done at the end of the Hogwarts school year.  But despite this now common routine, for some reason, this year Harry felt disoriented and strangely detached from his surroundings.  He felt nothing.  He felt numb.  He had had a pleasant enough journey back on the train, had heard his fellow students whisperings about what a nutter he was change to apologetic acknowledgement and interest in his story, but he hadn't quite felt happy or relieved or vindicated, or anything come to think of it, by this.  There too he had felt rather numb and detached from the rest of the world.  He'd heard Lupin and Moody and Mr. Weasley actually threaten Uncle Vernon if he mistreated Harry, which one would think would have sent Harry to the moon with pleasure, but this too seemed rather far away  – as if it hadn't really happened.  

He looked over at Hedwig, who was sitting in her cage on the backseat between him and Dudley (Dudley was naturally squeezed as far toward the door and away from her as possible), trying to make some sort of connection with a feeling about something – about anything.  _No big deal_, he thought, as he got out of the car, retrieved his school things from the trunk and hoisted Hedwig out of the back seat and began walking toward the house.  _I'm sure I'm just tired.  I just need to get some sleep, that's all_, he reasoned with himself.

Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia and Dudley led the now traditional silent parade up the sidewalk and into the house.  Without so much as a glance in his direction, they continued with tradition and ignored Harry completely and disappeared into the kitchen or living room or wherever it was they went to get away from Harry.  Harry found himself smiling slightly at this familiar routine and dragged his trunk and Hedwig up the stairs and into his bedroom on the second floor.  _Well, _he thought as he closed the door behind him and placed Hedwig's cage on his dresser, _if I have to come here every year, at least it's_ _a step up from the cupboard under the Stairs.  _Hedwig gave a friendly hoot.

Harry lay down on his bed, kicked off his shoes, and stretched and wiggled his toes.  His shoes were too small.  Again.  He stared at the ceiling for a while watching the warm strands of sunset color the room and was still staring at the ceiling when the last golden orange faded and the room became washed in deep gray.  "I suppose I should turn on a light, Hedwig, what do you think?" said Harry conversationally.  Hedwig did not respond.  In fact, Hedwig, apparently tired from the journey herself, seemed to have given up on any thought of hunting and was sleeping soundly on her perch.  

Harry decided not to turn on a light.  He decided not to bother changing into pajamas either.  In fact, he had a funny feeling that he was trying to avoid a lot of things.  He just wasn't sure what they were.  Not really feeling any way in particular about anything, his didn't bother fighting the heaviness in his eyelids either and he fell asleep, his glasses still securely on his nose.

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At 4:30 a.m. Harry's head was filled with such dreams that he was having difficulty, even in his dreams, keeping up with everything.  His was clutching his Firebolt, which had a huge chunk of wood missing near the tail in his left hand.  The back of his right hand was bleeding onto Hedwig who had a broken wing.  He reached out to Hedwig to stroke her feathers but as he did Hedwig flew out an open window and Neville appeared tap-dancing and juggling several clear round spheres as he grinned proudly.  Harry tried to stop Neville from juggling the spheres; sure he was going to drop them when Ginny stepped between them and slapped his hand, telling him that Neville wouldn't drop the balls and to stop worrying so much.  Harry's hand began to bleed again and as he wiped the blood from his hand, the words "cannot live while the other" appeared word by word on his hand and then faded.  

A very old house elf crossed in front of him holding a leash that was tied to a collar around Hermione's neck which had a large tag on the collar with what looked like a family crest and the name "Black" on it.  The house elf was placing armloads of miscellaneous trinkets and odds and ends into her school bag as he continued to lead her around the room.  Harry tried to leave the room but found the room had many doors all of which had a sprig of mistletoe hung above them.  Sitting beneath one of the doors at a tiny café table was Cho Chang who sobbed uncontrollably as she looked down at the dead body of Cedric Diggory at her feet.  She looked up at Harry and said through gasps and sobs, "your stag ate my swan and you don't even care". 

Ron was walking around the room muttering something about wanting to blow up Bulgaria as Harry turned and walked toward a large tapestry of what looked like a family tree but as he approached the tapestry it was replaced by an archway covered in a thin veil of fabric, which swayed in a breeze, the source of which Harry could not find.  He pulled aside the veil to find a long kitchen table with all the Hogwarts ghosts sitting around it talking excitedly about a new ghost that would soon be joining them.

He felt a hand grasp his arm firmly and pull him away from the veil.  He looked around to see Sirius standing there grinning broadly.  "I'm bored", said Sirius.  Next second the person holding his arm changed from Sirius to Lupin.  Their eyes met and Lupin was about to speak when Harry, suddenly overcome with a great sense of dread and not wanting to hear what Lupin was about to say, jerked his arm free, jumped on the back of a marble statue of a centaur that had appeared out of thin air, and rode it out of the window.  The centaur disappeared beneath him and Harry began falling in what seemed like slow motion – down down down to the unseen bottom below.

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Harry opened his eyes, closed them again, and then re-opened them allowing his brain to fixate on reality.  His heart was beating very fast and it took him a minute or two to remember that he was in his bed in Privet Drive.  _What a crazy dream, _he thought as he reached for his glasses, and then realizing he still had them on, he took a deep, slow breath and looked around at his room in the pre-dawn light, allowing the visual tour to ease his brain into what was real vs. dreamed.  

As the sun started to lighten the sky and his room as well, Harry found himself going over parts of the dream in his now awakened mind.  The parts of it that were easily recognizable seemed so far away from ever really happening that an idea occurred to him.  What if it was all a dream?  What if everything that he thought was real was just a crazy dream and he hadn't even left for his fifth year of Hogwarts yet?  Maybe he would get up today and realize that he hadn't even turned 15 yet…and that Sirius was of course still alive and in hiding with Buckbeak. 

_Yeah, that's it, _thought Harry, _this has all been some crazy dream.  I'll just write Sirius a letter and tell him about my crazy dream and see what he makes of it all._  Harry pulled out a sheet of parchment and a quill from his desk and began to write to Sirius, completely ignoring the very irritating inner voice in his head:

Dear Sirius, 

I've been having the craziest dreams.  I dreamed that dementors came to Little Whinging and that Lupin and Mad-Eye Moody came and took me to your mum's old house and that Voldemort was after me because of some prophecy about us, and that, and this is the funniest part, you were fighting a death eater and died.  Pretty crazy dream, huh?

Harry

Continuing to ignore the irritating voice inside his head he woke Hedwig and tying the letter to her leg said to her, "Hedwig, I need to you take this letter to Sirius".  Hedwig widened her huge amber eyes at him and stared at him but did not move.  "Go on!" he said.  "Go on!  Take this letter to Sirius."  Hedwig continued to stare at him but did not move.  "What's wrong with you?  Take this letter to Sirius," Harry said, now growing more irritated and angry with her every refusal.  Hedwig continued to stare at Harry in what in human terms would have been pity but Harry was now growing angrier and angrier at this defiance.  "HEDWIG!" he shouted, not caring if he woke the whole neighborhood, "TAKE THIS LETTER TO SIRIUS NOW!" and he shook her cage in frustration.  Hedwig let out a soft, almost mournful hoot and held out her leg for Harry to take the letter off of it.  He stared at her.  She stared back at him.  

She continued to hold her leg out to him.  And then in a soft, desperate, pleading voice, Harry asked her one more time, "Hedwig, please take this letter to Sirius".  She cocked her head slightly, stared at him and held her leg out even higher so that he could remove the letter tied there.  After several long seconds, Harry finally reached out and gently removed the letter from Hedwig's leg, clenching his jaw shut tightly to prevent something welling up inside of him from escaping.  He blinked quickly several times and then sat down on his bed, watching the room grow lighter with the dawn. 

It had not been a dream.  He knew it.  He had wanted to believe anything but the truth.  The truth that Sirius Black was dead and that Harry had caused his death.  Sure, Voldemort had tricked him, but if he had just done what he was told to do and studied Occlumency, his Godfather would still be here today.  But now, because of his stubbornness and arrogance, he would never speak to his Sirius again.  

His thoughts of supreme guilt were interrupted by a polite knock on his bedroom door.  A soft, dulcet toned voiced followed this knock.  "Harry, dear," said Aunt Petunia, "what can I fix you for breakfast?"  Harry looked quickly around the room, touched the nightstand and the bed to make sure they were real, and finally pinched himself to make sure he wasn't dreaming.  "Sorry?" said Harry, in a completely confused and croaky voice.  "What would you like for breakfast, dear?" repeated Aunt Petunia.  _Ok_, thought Harry, _this is some sort of sick joke I suppose.  Just great._  Deciding to play along, Harry answered her with his best sarcastic tone:  "I'll have a large stack of hotcakes, 3 eggs, scrambled, toast, sausage, bacon, and tea", And then, after a few beats of silence, "Oh, and a large glass of milk…. please", he added indulgently.  He rolled his eyes.  "Alright then, dear", said Aunt Petunia in an oddly pleasant voice she reserved almost exclusively for Dudley, "it'll just be a few minutes", she added.  

Her footsteps were then heard quickly pattering off down the stairs and off to prepare whatever horror she was planning for Harry. Wondering what this new torture was that Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had in mind for him, Harry's curiosity got the better of him and he got up, showered, checked hopefully in the mirror for a sign of mustache or beard hair worthy of a shave (not yet), and with a sigh acknowledged a noisily growling stomach.  _Maybe if I'm lucky_, he thought, _they'll have finished breakfast and I can sneak a piece of toast or two before they do whatever it is they're planning to do to me._  

So, after putting on his best Dudley hand-me-downs, he walked downstairs toward the kitchen as quietly as possible, hoping to go unnoticed.  As he approached the kitchen however, he was disappointed to hear the voices of Aunt Petunia, Uncle Vernon and Dudley. They were arguing about something in very hushed, whispered tones that Harry couldn't quite make out the content of.  Far too used to being ignored, Harry assumed as always, that his presence would go completely unnoticed and the arguing would continue, however, when Harry stepped foot across the threshold of the kitchen, there was instant silence.  All three Dursleys turned to stare at Harry.  Harry felt oddly self-conscious and thought maybe his fly was unzipped or that he had toothpaste on his face or something.  He checked his fly quickly and wiped his face but everything seemed to be normal, so he stared back.

Dudley returned to eating his usual sizable breakfast, but Aunt Petunia's mouth did a very funny thing.  It widened into a grin; an oddly forced, unnatural grin, but definitely a grin.  She nudged Uncle Vernon with her elbow and his face too twisted oddly into an unnatural, forced but unmistakable grin.  Before Harry could quite get his head around this bizarre scene, Aunt Petunia said in her cheeriest Dudley voice, "good morning, Harry!"  There was nothing Harry could do to suppress the look of shock and surprise that swept over his face.  Before he could take this new piece of phenomena in, Uncle Vernon added, "Yes, good morning, Harry."  Although this time, it was clearly one of those times in life when what a person is saying is clearly not what they are thinking.  _Ok, this is just way too weird, _thought Harry, _even for the Dursleys._  

Harry seemed to be glued to the place he was standing and just as he was talking his body into retreating up to his bedroom as fast as he could, Aunt Petunia walked over to him, and gently guided him to his usual place at the kitchen table.  He sat down and Aunt Petunia reached out her bony hand and hesitating as if she were about to touch something unsanitary, found her courage and patted Harry's arm with would-be affection.  "Your breakfast will be just a minute," she said, "I wanted to keep it nice and warm for you while you showered".  _Ok, _thought Harry, _this is officially creeping me out now._  His voice too seemed to be frozen in shock, but he managed a "thank you", which sounded more like a question as it left his lips.

He chanced a glance over at Uncle Vernon who was still staring and grinning at him.  Harry's mouth tried to form a return smile, but his face was having great difficulty reconciling shock and surprise and a fake smile and his face wound up with some weird compromise, which involved his eyebrows and his upper lip sort of "turning up".

He decided to stare at his place setting instead of continuing the effort of returning Uncle Vernon's smile.  As he dropped his gaze he noticed that Dudley seemed to be acting relatively normal and was pretty much ignoring Harry.  Although he did notice that Dudley's shoulders were very tense.  Dudley was usually quite relaxed when he was polishing off large quantities of food.

"Here you are, dear", said Aunt Petunia in her saccharin best.  "One large stack of hotcakes, 3 eggs, scrambled, toast, sausage, bacon, and tea.  Oh! And a large glass of milk", she finished as she placed the breakfast in front of Harry.  Harry's mouth dropped open as he stared at the beautifully prepared and presented breakfast that lay before him.  _They can't be trying to poison me or anything, _Harry thought, _they promised Dumbledore they'd let me stay here._  "Eat up now", said Uncle Vernon and then he added with very apparent pain, "son".  And he followed this with an oddly toothy grin.  This was definitely over the top, thought Harry. 

As Harry sat there and stared between the two maniacally grinning Dursleys and the oddly silent Dudley, Harry had a strange and strong urge to run from the house.  Then a horrible thought entered Harry's head.  _Maybe one of the death eaters had put the imperious curse on the Dursleys and they're trying to poison me or they've laced the food with veritaserum or something.  _Harry withdrew his hand from the fork that he had been about to pick up.  Aunt Petunia's grin faded and she said in her Dudley-I'm-worried-about-you-tone, "is there something wrong, Harry, dear?  Not enough butter?"  Harry was still having difficulty speaking but managed an "umm..." before Uncle Vernon spoke up, "now, Harry, your Aunt and I wouldn't want anyone to think that you weren't well nourished or well taken care of, would we?"  And he finished his sentence with yet another forced grin.

Harry's return smile was real this time as it dawned on him what was going on.  He laughed to himself and had to work hard to contain the laugh from escaping his mouth.  He had a sudden and vivid flashback to the train platform the day before.  Moody's threat to Uncle Vernon echoed in his memory, "if we get any hint that Potter's been mistreated in any way, you'll have us to answer to".   Harry returned his thoughts to the breakfast table and still smiling at Uncle Vernon, said, "no, we wouldn't".  And with that, Harry picked up his fork and enjoyed the first real breakfast he had ever eaten at Privet Drive.

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End file.
